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Artist's impression of the new Y at Cherry St, renderings by MJMA for Dundee Kilmer Integrated Design Team

By Jaclyn TersigniSpecial to the Star

Sat., Jan. 19, 2013

Formerly a sprawling grey vista of old industrial lands, the West Don Lands is on its way to becoming a vibrant community, thanks to historic revitalization plans that include affordable housing, green space and the 2015 Pan/Parapan American Games Athletes' Village.

Located at Cherry and Front Sts., the village will later become a state-of-the-art YMCA and George Brown College student residence.

“The Pan Am Village was a natural (fit) for the West Don Lands precinct because it was already planned and ready to go, so shovels could go in the ground very quickly,” says Pam McConnell, a Toronto councillor whose ward includes the West Don Lands.

“In the precinct plan, there has always been a designated need for a community centre, so it will fill that need,” McConnell says. “It will also fill a need for community activity and for healthy activity.”

And the need is great. The surrounding community is expected to grow by 13.5 per cent by 2020. Currently, 30 per cent of the community's families have children at home and 40 per cent report having a weak sense of community belonging.

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For the YMCA, the location at Cherry and Front Sts. represented opportunities to become a part of a great partnership, improve the health indicators in the community and to contribute to the development of the neighbourhood.

“It's a big open space that's flexible,” says Alex Verslius, vice-president of property management for the YMCA of Greater Toronto.

“It allows for a vision for a community space where things can happen based on the goals of the community.”

Verslius has been involved with planning for the facilities, along with the project's other partners – Waterfront Toronto, Infrastructure Ontario, the Toronto 2015 Organizing Committee, the Ontario Ministry of Health Promotion and Sport, and George Brown College.

“One of the really great features, certainly from an athlete's perspective, is the fact that it's not a temporary, small space that's being repurposed,” says Allen Vansen, senior vice-president of operations for Toronto 2015, the Pan Am organizing committee.

“There's a huge advantage from that perspective, compared to many other athletes' villages that take an empty commercial space and temporarily set it up.”

The Pan Am Athlete's Village — and subsequently the YMCA and George Brown College student residence — will be built to LEED (Leadership in Environmental and Energy Design) gold environmental standards.

As an athlete's village, the facilities will accommodate between 7,400 and 8,000 athletes during the games' peak period. There will be swimming lanes, an indoor running track and fitness equipment for athletes to take advantage of during their time in Toronto.

Once the games have come to an end, the facilities will undergo a transition to suit their new purpose.

“The use of an area for an athlete's village is pretty unique,” Vansen says. “There's a lot of temporary infrastructure — tents and a dining hall, things of that nature — that we have to take down when the Games are over.”

The site later gets handed to the province and developer Dundee Kilmer to finish the retrofitting “to repurpose the site in its entirety to its final condition, where it will be a very vibrant community in east Toronto,” Vansen says.

Once converted, the new centre will have 4,645 square metres (50,000 square feet) of space for community activities, a gymnasium, fitness studios, a swimming pool, multi-purpose rooms and an 1,020-square-metre (11,000-square-foot) accessible green roof. Its services and programming will be able to support over 8,000 people in the community.

“It's a huge win-win-win for everybody,” says Cynthia Wilkey, chair of the West Don Lands committee.

Wilkey has been an integral part of plans for the West Don Lands revitalization since 1997, when the community came together and became proactive about the future of the area.

The group's years of dedicated, community-based planning — which focused on affordable housing, sustainability and community space — formed the foundation and vision of Waterfront Toronto's plans for the lands.

Now 15 years later, Wilkey is satisfied that the future looks bright for this long undeveloped Toronto community.

“Decisions that kept it right on track have been made,” Wilkey says. “We're very happy.”

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